Operation: Eye Candy
by Rhianwen
Summary: A tale of love, hate, and literary analysis gone horribly wrong. Mary shares her favourite book with Elli, and in return is swept up in the third most disastrous matchmaking attempt Mineral Town has ever seen.
1. Chapter 1

Operation: Eye Candy

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Summary: A tale of love, hate, and literary analysis gone horribly wrong. Mary shares her favourite book with Elli, and in return is swept up in the third most disastrous matchmaking attempt Mineral Town has ever seen.

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Disclaimer: All characters appearing or mentioned in this story are the creations and property of that thar Marvelous game company or what's-it. They are being used without permission, for no profit, so hopefully it's all good.

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A beautiful day, early in summer. The drowsy hush of mid-afternoon settling peacefully over the little mountain town. The flowers in full bloom, their sweet scent wafting to and fro on a gentle, refreshing breeze.

Through this most tranquil of scenes stormed a little brunette, clad in unseasonably heavy skirts, blouse, and apron.

A tiny, adorable bunny bounded over to say hello, only to be quickly dispatched by young Elli Greene's best attempt at a fearsome glare. As the fuzzy little creature bounded hastily away, Elli sighed, swiped impatiently at a dew of perspiration over her forehead, and continued on her stormy way.

As a tall, narrow stone building filled her line of vision, her sigh took on a distinctly happier nature, and the soft pink mouth hitherto set in a tight frown, curved gently up.

The Library.

The town's greatest bastion of hope, knowledge, enlightenment, intelligent conversation, and most importantly, air conditioning.

With one last vicious mutter at the stubbornness of men everywhere, Elli slipped quietly into the building.

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"Hi, Mary!"

The petite dark-haired girl seated at the front desk in body, but roving fairylands of faraway in spirit, gave a startled yelp. As her eyes lit on the bundle of blue, brown, and frills beaming happily at her, she smiled sheepishly.

"Oh! Hello, Elli. How are you?"

"I'm just fine," Elli replied cheerfully. "Just a little overheated. Hi, Gray," she concluded with a bright smile and a wave for the silent young man seated at a nearby table.

Gray looked up briefly, gave a noncommittal grunt, and went back to his book.

Mary laughed softly and gave Elli and apologetic shrug, then straightened up, all business in an instant.

"So, what brings you to the Library today?"

Elli's eyes grew huge and plaintive.

"I need a book that doesn't have glossy illustrations of the digestive system, or lengthy descriptions of what happens to it when you have Irritable Bowel Syndrome."

Mary giggled, and even Gray smiled slightly to himself.

"Well, you're in luck," the pretty dark-haired girl at the counter said, taking her friend's arm. "We have plenty of those."

"Wow, it looks wonderful in here!" Elli noted, scanning the massive bookshelves covering the wall and packed to capacity with books. She twisted around, to look in every direction at once, overbalancing, and nearly stumbling.

Mary steadied her with a supporting arm.

"I forgot that you hadn't been here since the renovations." She frowned over the tops of her glasses. "Where have you been, anyway?"

Elli blushed sheepishly.

"W-well, you know, I have work, and Grandma's physical therapy, and then Stu still needs some attention. It all adds up!"

"Why don't you bring Stu?" Mary suggested hopefully. "I have a section dedicated to children's books, and May loves it!"

Elli winced.

"Stu in a library…that's a little bit like unloosing an angry cat in a drapery store."

"Oh, I'd keep him under control," Mary assured her comfortably, a glint in her eye that made Elli shiver slightly. She shivered again when her friend's expression turned back into a stern glare. "And at least then, we wouldn't have to wait six months between visits."

"The Clinic is really busy right now!" Elli protested in something near a wail, nevertheless laughing as the two girls came to a halt in front of the romance section. She beamed. _Mary knows me so well… _

"The doctor manages to get here every Wednesday," Mary pointed out, arms crossed, one eyebrow lifting slightly behind her glasses. "Why don't you just come with him?"

"Because _someone_ has to make sure we have food for the week," Elli sighed, rolling her eyes slightly. "And every time I ask him to run to the Supermarket for something, it seems like he barely gets in the door before Sasha comes storming over, demanding the money upfront because he tried to _put it on our tab_."

Mary patted her friend's shoulder comfortingly.

"Well, at least you got here to see me eventually."

"I had to!" Elli chirped. "The doctor kept telling me all about the improved selection, and the nice cushy chairs on the second floor!"

"Because I suppose it would kill the man to stay on the first floor at talk to someone for a while," Mary grumbled.

"And anyway," Elli continued, making a face, "I had to get out. Duke's over there right now, and he was ranting on and on about Kai."

Mary groaned, pressing a hand to her forehead.

"Oh, here we go again. Every single summer. You'd think they would all just grow up after a while."

"_I_ wouldn't think that," Elli said emphatically. "Although, I do think that Duke obviously needs some more work to do, if he has all this spare time to come to the Clinic and complain."

"Well, didn't you two talk some sense into him?"

Elli sighed again with a gesture of hopelessness.

"I tried. Then I just got Duke ranting at me about how I just had stars in my eyes from that pretty-boy conman, and he thought I was a smarter girl than that."

"And the doctor told him he was being silly, right?" Mary asked, half pleading.

The befrilled little nurse shook her head sadly.

"Actually, he seemed even more upset with me than Duke. I'm afraid the doctor doesn't like Kai very much either. He says he just can't respect anyone who wanders around like that without any thought of getting a steady job, and centers what little work he actually does around filling people with junk food. I don't understand what those two and Rick have against him, honestly; everyone else in town likes him!"

"Um, not quite," Mary broke in hesitantly.

Elli blinked.

"Well, who else? You like him, don't you, Gray?"

Gray looked up.

"Huh? Oh; yeah, he's okay. Good cook."

"Unfortunately, Gray's grandfather doesn't feel the same," Mary sighed as Gray immersed himself once more in his novel. "Neither does my father, or Karen's father, or even Barley. Carter doesn't mind him, but I think that's just because he has his head in the clouds too often to know what's going on."

Elli laughed a little guiltily, and then shook her head sadly.

"It's just so silly. I always thought it was only Duke that's been filling Rick's head with nonsense, but I'm starting to see why Rick feels so strongly about it. He's probably had all the men in town that he looks up to egging him on for the past ten yeas, telling him over and over that he's a terrible brother if he doesn't try to protect Popuri from the boy she likes."

Mary giggled behind her hand.

"I never thought I'd hear of anyone looking up to Duke."

"I meant the rest of them," Elli said impatiently. "They should all be ashamed of themselves. Look at the trouble they're causing, just because they have some weird hang-up about white paint! They've been foisting a decade of their own insecurities on Rick, so it's no surprise that he's been influenced by it!"

"But Elli," Mary piped up hesitantly, "doesn't Rick seem a little…intense about it, for it to just be a matter of old habits dying hard?"

"Not really," the brunette shrugged. "Rick was, what, fourteen when Kai showed up for the first time? Even given the enormous ego and certainty of the average fourteen year old that they're the only one who knows anything about anything, it's still a very impressionable age. And you know what Duke is like: he probably knew exactly what buttons to push. _'Oh, if only your father could see this, his precious baby girl gallivanting around town with an irresponsible drifter while his only son sits idly by and lets it happen! Rod would be ashamed of you, Richard! How do you expect to provide for Karen if you can't even keep your own family safe? Get out there and be a man!'_"

By now, Mary was doubled over in a helpless fit of laughter, while Gray, drawn from his book by all the commotion, just shook his head at Elli's eerily accurate imitation of Duke's blustering pomposity.

"Well, I suppose Rick can't help it if he's the most predictable person on earth," Mary agreed, breathless from laugher, wiping her eyes. "Or if he's so led by emotion that he actually fell for all of it. But you know, he talks about Kai a lot. And Kai talks about him a lot. I almost have to wonder if there's something else going on there."

Elli tilted her head to the side in a gesture of adorable confusion.

"Um, like what?"

Mary grinned toothily.

"Come with me."

With that, the brunette found herself seized by the arm and dragged bodily upstairs.

"I got two copies of this one sent in," Mary explained as she scanned the shelves carefully, eyes searching penetratingly for the elusive Book, "because I want to know that I have a copy just in case someone has it out."

"Wow," Elli giggled. "You haven't been that obsessed with a book since Karen got you Exit to Eden when we were twelve!"

"This is a special book," Mary assured her, eyes wide and serious behind thick black wire frames.

"I'm almost afraid to find out…"

"Ah! Found it!" the dark-haired girl proclaimed triumphantly, tugging a book from the shelf and handing it to her pal.

Elli took the little paperback hesitantly, glanced at the cover, and then started, eyes widening in shock, before looking again, much more closely.

The front cover was a typical soft-focus watercolour style with overly ornate loopy script declaring the title and author, but the illustration itself…

Two young men, one pale and blue-eyed, long dark-blond hair caught up in same the breeze pulling back his fluttery white (open) shirt to expose a wiry, yet somehow muscled frame; the other swarthy, with dark, laughing eyes, hair tied in a brightly coloured cloth. Their arms around one another in a fierce embrace.

"Oh, my," Elli breathed, cheeks bright red. "They look a little like—"

"I know," Mary said emphatically, her grin widening. "Take that home, and we can compare notes when you come to return it."

"Uh-huh," Elli agreed vaguely, and Mary gave a soft laugh at the sight of the little brunette already deeply engrossed in the first page.

"Did you need anymore books?" she asked helpfully.

Elli shook her head, flipping the page.

"I think I'm good."

She started toward the stairs, and the little librarian hurried after her, catching her arm before she could walk directly into the wall next to the staircase. Mary shook her head fondly as she escorted Elli safely through the front door of the library, recalling the many bumps and bruises she had sustained while reading that same book.

Somehow, it had a way of completely consuming a girl's attention…

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Mary hadn't thought to look for Elli for at least a week after their impromptu meeting. After all, she was a _very_ busy girl, and _very busy girls_ couldn't very well bury themselves in books for hours a day.

Therefore, she had nearly collapsed into a pile of giggles, but not been particularly surprised, when barely half a day later had seen her coming downstairs to refill her tea cup, only to find Elli waiting in the kitchen, chatting politely with Basil.

"Oh! Mary!" her father called. "Elli's here to visit."

"I see that," Mary murmured, choking back laughter with some difficulty. "You didn't bring the book back."

Elli blushed.

"Um...well, I was hoping that I could borrow it for a little while longer."

Mary giggled at her friend's shy, pink-cheeked hopefulness, and pulled another teacup from the cupboard for her visitor.

"Sure you can; I told you, I have a spare."

"Thank-you, Mary!" Elli yelped, hugging her friend tightly.

"Of course! Now, let's go upstairs and compare notes."

With that, they were gone, trotting up the stairs, teacups in hand, leaving a blinking, bewildered Basil in their wake.

What on earth was that all about? He knew that his body of work was skillfully composed, thoroughly researched, and interwove poetry flawlessly with scientific data, but he had never before known the topic of the plant and animal life found in Mother's Hill to have such an effect on the young ladies of Mineral Town, much as he thought secretly that it ought to.

Well, maybe little Elli was blushing and giggling over the mention of Dr. Cuthbert.

And so, Basil set out for Doug's Place, basking in the knowledge that he had successfully scored another dedicated reader; it was good to know that his lure had been successful.

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"Um, what's this for?" Elli was meanwhile asking hesitantly as Mary presented her with a notebook and a pencil.

"To take notes!" Mary chirped happily, selecting a notebook and pencil for herself and sliding onto the little patchwork-covered bed next to her friend.

"O-okay," Elli said hesitantly. "But...um, why do we have to take notes?"

Mary looked aghast.

"Elli! Recording your observations is _very_ important for a full and thorough literary analysis!"

"But I was just reading," Elli protested. "I'm not good at literary analysis."

"That's why I'm here!" Mary chirped. "This is a book you plan to read again, right?"

Elli nodded, blushing brightly red and borderline grinning.

Mary made a little noise of triumph.

"Well, then! Your interpretation will change each time you read it, and your first impressions are especially crucial. Now," she continued briskly as Elli began to show signs of further protest, "what was your first thought when Dominic and Freddy finally kissed for the first time in Chapter 4?"

"Purrrrrrrr," Elli replied immediately, eyes dreamy.

"After that," Mary huffed impatiently.

"Heehee?"

"Elli!"

"What?" Elli demanded, wounded. "Heehee is a perfectly valid observation!"

"I realize that," Mary said through gritted teeth, "but we need your _coherent_ first impressions."

"I wasn't doing much coherent thinking by the time Freddy threw Dominic against the wall, and Dominic began tearing at his clothes," Elli murmured, face hidden in her hands, blushing so brightly that Mary could almost swear that she could see the glow emanating from the cracks between her friend's fingers.

"Well, once you started thinking coherently," Mary giggled. "What did you think? Even if you think it sounds silly, just tell me your first observation."

Elli gave a giggle of her own, sounding rather as though her brain wasn't receiving quite enough oxygen.

"I suppose I was mostly thinking that I wish I had a bitter enemy, if that's what happens."

"Elli!" Mary squeaked, half-scandalized and half-impressed. "So, amid dirty thoughts, did you at least notice the similarities of Dominic and Freddie to Kai and Rick?"

"Of course!" Elli chirped. "And then I had some more dirty thoughts!"

"Have you always been like this?" Mary asked conversationally.

"I think so," Elli replied thoughtfully. "Why?"

"Because if you have, I don't know whether to envy the doctor, or fear for his health. I think he might be at risk of severe overexertion once you two finally stop dancing around each other and hop into bed, or the shower, or his desk, or _your_ desk together."

"Mary!" Elli squealed, hiding in the prettily embroidered blue and white pillow at the head of the bed.

"Don't worry, I won't tell him that he's living with a closet pervert. Now, let's bring Kai and Rick into the discussion. How are they similar to Dominic and Freddie, and how are they different?"

"Well," the little brunette began, one finger to her lip in deep consideration, "they argue almost as much. And Freddie never entirely trusted Dominic – at least, until the train accident that almost claimed Dominic's life forced him to confess his undying love, and wrest Dominic back from the brink of the grave. But…Dominic and Freddie both had horrible, mean, spiteful, borderline psychotic girlfriends who lived only to keep them apart. I know there's a little bit of gossip going around about Rick and Karen, but Karen always turns red and punches people when she hears it. And Popuri's told me dozens of times that Rick is being irrational, because she and Kai aren't even really _dating_. And anyway, Karen and Popuri are both really _sweet_."

"There are differences, of course," Mary admitted. "But I think the _tension _between Kai and Rick is similar to the tension between Dominic and Freddie."

"You mean, Kai and Rick are already kissing?" Elli gasped, leaning forward eagerly.

Mary rubbed her eyes behind her glasses.

"No, of course not! But I think the potential is there. The tension that Freddie and Dominic had _before_ they started kissing and making mad, passionate love up against every available wall."

"Are you sure they're not doing it now?" Elli asked, cheeks still red, eyes glazing over slightly.

"Elli! Focus!" Mary barked.

"No, I think I understand what you're trying to say, Mary," Elli assured her, expression growing determined. "Kai and Rick have the potential for a rare and beautiful sort of relationship, yet they choose to waste it with vaguely sexy, but ultimately useless arguing."

Mary blinked.

"Um…"

"Therefore, as the only two people in Mineral Town who understand what's _really_ going on with them, it is our duty to help them realize their love!"

"That wasn't exactly what I had in mind," Mary admitted slowly.

Elli sent her a Look.

"So, we were going to discuss them behind closed doors, cloistered away with our knowledge, and do absolutely nothing to apply it in a helpful and meaningful way?" she scoffed.

"That's what academics do!" Mary protested.

Elli crossed her arms, jaw set stubbornly.

"Well, _I'm_ not an academic. And I _will_ do something with the knowledge discovered here."

Mary bit her lip. Clearly, Elli was suffering symptoms of exhaustion and overwork, creating an odd effect when combined with certain Stirrings that the girl, newly twenty-one and living with a handsome young man that she greatly admired, was likely experiencing for the first time.

But Mary had always prided herself on being _the logical one_, the one who would invariably drag the others back to sanity, by force if necessary, when even Elli's common sense had failed her and all seemed lost.

Therefore, was it not her solemnly sworn and divinely given _duty_ to bring this Scheme of Elli's to a stop before it could cause untold embarrassment, chaos, and emotional trauma?

Mary grinned.

"Alright, let's do it."

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End Notes: O-kay! I've had this plot bunny bounding around the ol' cranium for a while now, pausing every now and again to fix me with sad, imploring bunny-eyes and beg me cutely to write its story. And, as the Power of the Bunny cannot be resisted forever, here it is. The first part, at any rate.

I think this'll probably end up being two or three chapters, and knowing me, each chapter will be sillier than the last.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

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In the weeks that followed, Elli would discover to the fullest extent why exactly it was that academics preferred to conduct their _thought experiments_ and _informed discussion _from up in their ivory towers, where it was safe.

Mary would likewise rediscover this same principle, and make more than one mental note to never, _ever_ try to apply her knowledge in a meaningful way for the benefit of those around her again – the returns thus far had been woefully lacking.

Nevertheless, neither was particularly known for giving up on an idea just because it was proving to be a bad one, and so they plotted and planned, consulted and conceived, certain that the _perfect idea_ lay just around the next corner despite the failed attempts littering the highway behind them.

One such attempt laid to rest in the early days of the girls' stint as matchmakers hinged on the principle of _any interaction is good interaction_.

After agreeing that even hostile discussion would get Kai and Rick more firmly in each other's heads than ever, while simultaneously forgetting that Kai was already as firmly in Rick's head as he could be without rupturing something, Mary and Elli had gone to great length to track down Rick and happen to _casually_ mention to anyone who happened to be nearby that Popuri was at Kai's Seaside Snack Shack, and they couldn't get her to leave.

The first time, it had worked – at least, insofar as getting Rick to the Snack Shack went. It had been pure luck to find Rick on a day that he had already spent the better parts of, attempting to track down his sister for some help with the installation of the _new equipment_.

Neither Elli nor Mary could figure out what _equipment_ could possibly be of use on a Poultry Farm, beyond a windmill and possibly a water bottle, and neither particularly wanted to know. The fact remained that after a day of fruitless searching for Popuri, this new lead, heavily involving a young man that most of the male population of Mineral Town had very vocally distrusted from his first appearance, stoked combined relief and annoyance in young Richard, and sent him quickly and fumingly to the Seaside Snack Shack of Kai.

There, much shouting and arguing, counter-arguing and further shouting, and a little bit of name-calling, had ensued.

Then Kai, stunned speechless by this unexpected appearance and onslaught by his intended future brother-in-law, managed to get his gaping mouth closed and opened again, sufficiently to inform Rick that his sister was not, in fact, visiting, and had not been all day.

All might have been well, had this bit of information not been followed up by an angrily muttered, yet entirely justified, "you wacko."

Rick's temper, just beginning to settle back into worry about where Popuri might be if she was not, in fact, here, flared back up in an instant, further stoked by concern for his sister, until all coherence fled the young man as swiftly as butter melts before the awesome wrath of the microwave oven.

Before the dismayed eyes of a librarian and a nurse watching the whole proceedings from their position crouched outside an open window, Rick had begun shouting that Kai was lying, and Popuri was hidden somewhere behind the scenes, just waiting for the evening ferry to spirit her away from her friends and family.

Neither girl was generally known for being illogical – when alluring images of men kissing men weren't involved, at least – and both Mary, a cool-headed intellectual, and Elli, a bright girl full of common sense and several years' experience dealing with rowdy young males, had begun to think, after a scant fifteen minutes of increasingly violent arguing, that perhaps it was time to intervene.

But before they could spring from their window retreat, swing around to the door and announce that the whole thing was their fault because they simply weren't very good matchmakers now that they thought about it, Popuri had bolted into the Snack Shack to add to the noise and general confusion.

The three-way debate raged for well over an hour, drawing such concerned onlookers as Won, Zack, and Greg the Fisherman, and eventually saw two little blue-clad figures, one topped in black and one in brown, sneaking quickly away from the beach.

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"Well, _that_ didn't work," Mary pouted between gasps for breath after a desperate sprint.

"I don't know what went wrong," Elli sighed, loosening her necktie and unfastening a few buttons on her blouse.

Still clinging to the edge of her desk for support, Mary smiled.

"I think we just need to try it again. They were both in a bad mood today."

Elli nodded briskly.

"You're right, Mary. What's that they say about things like this? 'If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving probably isn't for you.' But fortunately, we're not skydiving – we're matchmaking, which is only slightly more dangerous."

Mary frowned.

"Um...does that mean you're in, or you're out?"

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"I don't understand it,"that same Miss Mary announced flatly, approximately two days and twenty-seven minutes later. "Once again, they used Popuri as an excuse to exercise their aggression, hiding all their sexual tension behind a protective barrier of anger!"

Elli dropped despondently to the floor, her long skirts flaring out around her in a vaguely cupcakesque manner.

"So, how do we _stop_ them from hiding behind a little five-foot-three pink-haired cutie who wouldn't hurt a fly and loves everyone?"

Mary grinned wickedly, sliding her glasses firmly back into place.

"I was hoping you'd ask!"

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"Eep!" approximately twenty-two and a half hours later saw that same little five-foot three pink-haired cutie yelping in protest as a dark sack was flung over her head and she found herself lifted off the ground and hauled bodily away. "The Crab People have returned to exact their bloody revenge! Someone help!"

"Crab People?" Mary huffed through the exertion of helping Elli carry their friend.

"Popuri has a good imagination," Elli replied breathlessly, wrinkling her nose as a tiny bit of hair stuck to her sweat-damp forehead and itched unpleasantly.

"I know, but I thought she'd moved onto conspiracy theories about the soy industry working to eliminate all dairy farmers from the planet to further the spread of their soy-based replacement products."

"Soy manufacturers!" Elli echoed, narrowly dodging a flying foot clad in a stylish little boot. "You know, that's a really good point. I wonder if I should tell the doctor about this…"

"Elli!" Mary barked, arm wrapping more tightly around Popuri's torso to keep her arms pinned, and possibly restrain those surprisingly sharp little fists. "Focus!"

"Sorry," Elli grinned sheepishly, wincing as a boot connected with her stomach. "Ow…"

"Hello there, girls!"

Mary and Elli froze at this cheerful shout, and the sound of firm, steady footsteps approaching.

"Act natural!" Mary hissed nervously.

Elli nodded, eyes wide and frightened, and then turned to greet the newcomer.

"Hi, Harris," both girls chimed cheerfully.

"Hi, Harris," Popuri greeted, both her voice, muffled by a layer of burlap, and her disoriented little wave curiously cheerful given the situation.

Harris frowned.

"Who's that you've got in there? Popuri? Is that you?"

"W-we're kidnapping her," Mary informed him lamely, stammering slightly in her nervousness.

Harris's frown deepened.

"I really don't think you should be doing that."

A joyous little yelp issued forth from the bundle of burlap.

"After all," the town's entire law force continued very seriously, "heavy lifting without a proper warm-up could result in serious injury." A distinctly less joyous and more annoyed yelp from the burlap. "Elli, as a nurse, you ought to know that," he concluded, tsking disapprovingly.

"But—but we _did_ warm up," Elli said importantly. "We did a good fifteen minutes of stretches."

"Listen, let me help you girls," Harris insisted, reaching for a mildly furious Popuri, by now resuming her struggle to escape.

"This is a trick, right?" Mary muttered to Elli as Harris slung the yowling shape over his shoulder and started jauntily toward the Library and adjoining house. "No one can be _that_ stupid, can they?"

"Maybe he's part of the soy industry," Elli muttered back anxiously. "Maybe he's a secret agent sent to silence the dissident! I really think I should go tell the doctor—"

Mary made a grab for her friend's arm.

"Don't even think about it! I'm _not_ explaining to Popuri why we had to kidnap her without any backup!"

"It looks like Harris might do it," Elli giggled.

"Alright, girls, here we are," Harris announced proudly. "Do you want me to take her upstairs for you?"

"Ah, no, no, we've got her from here," Mary assured him hastily, bracing for impact as the tall, impressively shnozzed man swung his burden effortlessly around and settled her carefully in the librarian's arms.

"Elli! Help!" Mary squeaked as she felt herself slowly bending backwards.

"Sorry, Mary," Elli laughed sheepishly, rushing over to take Popuri's legs.

"Mary?! Elli?!" the squirming package in their arms repeated, going immediately still. "The evil soy people are playing on my emotional attachment to those names and sending abductors with the same ones after me!"

Mary winced, as Elli's eyes grew wide with sympathy.

"It's okay, sweetie, it's just us," the legendarily soft-hearted nurse assured their victim soothingly, only to blink confusedly when Popuri gasped, horrified.

"You two have joined with the evil soy people?!" she wailed, redoubling her efforts to break free, and nearly sending all three of them back down the two steps that Mary and Elli had managed, after several attempts, to climb. "This is terrible! Karen! Ann! Where _are_ you two?! I need your anti-health-food sentiment and your dedication to things that actually taste good!"

"No! Popuri, we're not with the soy people!" Mary tried desperately. "We'll explain everything in a minute."

"You better," Popuri huffed, crossing her arms emphatically and nearly inadvertently punching Mary in the nose.

A long moment of dogged struggle to climb the stairs passed.

"You know," Popuri finally piped up, "you could just put me down and let me walk up the stairs on my own."

Mary regarded the burlap sack suspiciously.

"You're not going to run away, are you?" 

"Of course I'm going to run away!" the burlap-covered young lady exploded, squirming frantically. "You're working with the evil soy industry!"

"Well, you never know," Mary murmured as the girls struggled the rest of the way up the stairs. "The evil soy people might want to see the true love of two handsome young men blossom, too."

"I don't know," Elli objected, nose wrinkling slightly. "The thought that we might share a fantasy with the evil soy people makes me feel a little dirty."

With a huge sigh of relief, Mary lunged for her bedroom door.

"Alright, Popuri, we're going to put you down now," she announced as the door clicked shut behind them. "And then we'll explain everything."

"About time!"

And true to Mary's word, down went the girl, and off of her head came the big burlap sack. The barest instant after she was free, Popuri wheeled on the dark-haired girl.

"Okay, start talking, Mary. I want an explanation! Preferably, one that doesn't involve the soy industry."

"It's okay, honey, there's no soy," Elli reassured her with a soothing little pat.

"We've kidnapped you for the sake of true love, Popuri," Mary added dramatically, only to adopt a slightly uneasy expression when the former's eyes grew wide and starry.

"Oh my gosh, I get it now!" she gasped, hands clasped. "You're doing this to make Kai realize that we really _are_ meant to be together, and he can't live without me! You're going to send him a letter, outlining the many trials he must overcome to win back his beloved from her captors! Oh, you guys are the best!"

"Do you want to tell her?" Mary muttered to Elli as they were both enveloped in a flowery, sweet pink hug.

"She seems so _happy_," Elli lamented as Popuri continued to ramble. "It seems a shame to ruin it. And you know, it's kind of a good idea."

Mary sighed, annoyed.

"Maybe next weekend." She sent her conspirator an impish little grin. "Do you have any trials in mind that you would like the Doctor to overcome for you?"

"Mary!" Elli exclaimed, horrified, before adopting a thoughtful expression. "So, um...what kinds of trials?"

The dark-haired girl cackled wickedly.

"Why don't you think about it, and let me know what you come up with? In the meantime, let's go spread love and happiness!"

Popuri watched, bewildered and blinking, as her friends scurried from the room.

"Um...Mary? Can I have a magazine?"

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It was a well known fact around Mineral Town that when Rick was busy with work, any work, the rest of the world ceased to exist for him. Be it tending the chickens he regarded as beloved family pets, shingling the roof of the farmhouse, or repainting the upstairs in whatever colour doctors were currently regarding as the most therapeutic in the hopes that leaf-green walls might improve Lillia's spirits and correspondingly her health, young Richard Terrence McGuire had an overwhelming tendency to become absorbed to the point that the rest of the world ceased to exist for him.

Particularly when he was plugged in to the portable cassette player Popuri had given him last birthday, after a week of taking over the farm chores while he recovered from a severe Spring cold. If _she_ had to listen to all that squawking and squealing all day, everyday, she told her mother with teary, sympathetic eyes, she'd be as crazy as Rick.

It was also well known around Mineral Town that Rick and Popuri could be very considerate of each other, if a little back-handedly so, during the rare occasions that they weren't quite openly at one another's throats.

At any rate, it was a combination of Rick's single-minded nature, Popuri's thoughtful nature, and fifty-seven chickens' noisy natures that led to Mary and Elli standing at the door of the chicken coop, too terrified by the razor-sharp beaks of the little feathered demons to venture any further, and shouting fruitlessly for Rick's attention.

Had one of the aforementioned feathered demons not attempted a daring escape, the situation might have carried on long into the night. As it was, the chickens were most decidedly a part of the task of tending to the chickens, and thus their actions were at the very front of Rick's mind. Thus, when one of them went scampering for the door, he went scampering after little Wilbur, and nearly collided with Mary, who had summoned up all her courage to snatch up the chicken.

"Oh! Thanks, Mary," he said, not without some bemusement, as he retrieved the would-be jailbreak. "What's up?

"Have you seen Popuri?" Elli asked, eyes wide and concerned, voice quivering with just enough worry that Mary internally applauded and tossed roses at her friend in honour of this stirring performance.

Rick pondered this carefully, scratching his brow absently.

"Uh, I don't think so. Maybe she's at Karen's?"

"We've looked there," Mary sighed, borderline melodramatic. "And at the Inn, and at Claire's, and at the Church...we're really running out of places to look."

"We're starting to get scared," Elli confided, voice wobbling a little bit more. "We haven't seen her all day, and no one knows where she is!"

Rick, not nearly as adept with matters of the theater as the two girls, couldn't quite disguise a hint of panic in his voice.

"Well, have you checked the beach? She might be there."

Mary fixed him with huge, pleading eyes.

"Will you come with us?"

Rick, in the process of taking off his apron and starting toward the farm gate, stopped and stared.

"Uh, why do you need me there? I was going to go to the forest to look.

"But we don't know Kai very well," Elli objected.

"You two go for snowcones every Friday!" Rick reminded them, annoyed.

Elli shrugged.

"That doesn't mean we've talked to him much; we just get our snowcones and go to the pier."

"To tell you the truth, we're a little scared of him," Mary confessed, eyes dropping to the ground sheepishly.

Rick sighed.

"Okay, fine. Let's go."

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"Yeah, I can see you're both terrified of him," that same Rick muttered sourly to Mary approximately ten minutes later, as Elli and Kai exchanged warm greetings and little bits of friendly teasing.

"So, uh, you're joining the snow cone party this week too?" Kai finally asked with a brief, uncertain smile in Rick's direction.

"No," the sandy-haired young man replied shortly. "Popuri's missing. Has she been here?"

Kai shook his head.

"No, no one's been here since I opened this morning."

"You mean, right before your three-hour lunch break, you lazy bastard?" Rick muttered under his breath.

Kai glared.

"Hey! Do you want my help, or not?"

"Not really," Rick snorted derisively.

"Oh, for crying out loud," Elli whined under her breath. Then she tugged lightly at the bandana-topped young man's sleeve. "Kai, maybe she was here earlier, but you were just so busy you didn't notice?"

Mary nodded her approval with this tactic. If Elli could urge Kai towards denying one of the things Rick disliked most about him - his perfect contentment to sit behind the counter all day with little to do - it might lead to a deeper understanding between them.

Kai, unfortunately, did not catch onto Elli's logic as easily as Mary. He laughed.

"Oh, come on, Elli; you know no one ever comes here. If Popuri had been by, I'd have remembered."

"See? He doesn't know where she is," Rick said, already heading away. "Now, let's stop wasting time, and go find her."

"Kai, can you help us?" Mary pleaded, eyes huge behind her glasses.

Kai groaned.

"Yeah, okay, fine. I think you're all overreacting, but I'm about to close up anyway."

"Over--?!" Rick sputtered disbelievingly. "Elli and Mary have been looking all day, and they haven't been able to find her anywhere! She could be injured!"

"Ohh, stupid conscience," Elli groaned quietly.

Kai, meanwhile, was beginning to look alarmed.

"You really think it's that serious? C'mon, man, she's probably just out for a walk."

"Popuri doesn't like to be alone in the forest in the evening," Rick said shortly. "Whenever she does that, she usually comes back home before six."

"Right," the other boy sighed. "Okay, where do we look first?"

Mary, generally able to spot the opportunity for a little _managing_ from miles away, perked up immediately.

"Kai, you and Rick are going to look up around Goddess Peak. Elli and I are going to check around Goddess Pond, and we'll stop to ask Gotz if he's seen anything."

Elli nodded her enthusiastic, whole-hearted agreement, and Kai regarded both girls suspiciously.

"Do you really think we should split up? If we find Popuri, and she's hurt, we stand a better chance of helping her if we're all together."

"Yeah," Rick agreed immediately. "Not to mention, I don't like the idea of you two wandering around the mountains by yourselves. If we have to split up--"

"But we're going to get Gotz to help us," Elli hastened to explain. "He could probably carry her by himself if she _is_ hurt, so we shouldn't waste you two."

Rick was silent for a long moment, and Mary could nearly see the gears spinning in his head, trying desperately to come up with a way to get out of enforced alone-time with Kai.

"Look, they've got a point," Kai muttered aside to the sandy-haired fellow. "Let's just go."

"Fine," Rick agreed, somewhere between a sigh and a huff, heading quickly toward the steps leading to Rose Square without a backward glance.

"Uh, we'll catch up with you two later," Kai tossed back over his shoulder, hurrying after his search party partner.

Once the beach was cleared satisfactorily of potential couples, Elli sent her friend a dazzling smile.

"Alone-time, _and _a romantic setting? You're so smart, Mary!"

Mary beamed.

"Oh, I know."

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"Popuri!"

The aforementioned looked up at this exclamation, sounding somewhere between surprised, relieved and annoyed.

"Oh, Karen, I'm _so_ glad you're here!" she greeted fervently, already up from her position lounging comfortably on Mary's bed next to a pile of magazines on the subject of plant life around the world. "I'm so bored!"

"Yeah, well, you won't be for long," Karen said grimly, taking Popuri's arm and guiding her toward the door. "Rick's spent the last two hours looking for you. He's frantic, and we _all_ know how well he deals with being scared."

"What?!" Popuri exclaimed, horrified. "Why is Rick looking for me? They were _supposed_ to give their evil kidnapper letter to Kai!"

Karen stared at her friend, her expression the perfect combination of bewilderment and foreboding that had made, and kept her a favourite target for pranks since early childhood.

"Evil kidnapper letter?" she repeated slowly.

Popuri blushed.

"Um, yeah. Mary and Elli thought that Kai wasn't realizing his true love for me fast enough, so they faked a letter from an evil kidnapper, and sent it to him anonymously."

Karen nodded thoughtfully.

"…so, how is that going to make Kai realize his true love for you?"

"Oh, come on, Karen," Popuri huffed. "It's _obvious_. When he finds out that I've been kidnapped, and he might never see me again, he'll realize that he loves me and he can't live without me! Then he'll propose as soon as he rescues me!"

"Uh…huh," Karen agreed slowly. "You've been inhaling pesticides at Claire's farm again, haven't you?"

"Well, it wasn't _my_ idea," Popuri shrugged. "Mary and Elli came up with it."

"To…make Kai realize that he's madly in love with you."

"Yes."

There was a long pause.

"Okay, let's go," Karen finally ordered, catching Popuri by the hand and dragging her towards the door of Mary's room.

"What?! But then Kai will know I haven't really been kidnapped!"

"Yes; I know," Karen said through gritted teeth, tugging in spite of Popuri's determination to stay put.

"The whole thing will be pointless!" Popuri wailed.

"_Will_ be pointless, she says."

"I spent a _whole hour_ sitting around, reading plant magazines! You want me to just let that go to waste?"

"Hey, you knew better than to listen to a Mary-and-Elli Plan in the first place," Karen said inexorably, giving one more final tug. Popuri still didn't budge. Sighing, Karen released her arm, and one hand at each shoulder. "Look, Poppi, I love Mary and Elli. But they both work desk jobs. Which means they have way too much time to let their imaginations rampage around, designing schemes. Then they get together to _talk_ about their schemes. And _then_, it starts to seem like a really, really good idea to actually _do_ one, and you end up sitting around reading plant magazines, while Kai and Rick beat the crap out of each other somewhere!"

"Yup, it's about time we stopped lettin' them uppity women have ideas," Popuri drawled amid giggles.

"Okay, thanks, _Grandpa_," Karen huffed. "Now, let's go find them before someone loses an eye."

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As it happened, this was much easier accomplished than Karen had dared to hope, given her past experience with Mary-and-Elli Plans.

Instead of searching high and low throughout town and woods alike and coming up without a trace, the girls had merely to step outside the front door, and directly into a pair of half-frantic, half-annoyed young men, who had both proceeded to barrage a bewildered and overwhelmed Popuri with questions. From the bits of the story they managed to get out before the other interrupted, Karen and Popuri managed to blean that the special men in their lives had run into Basil on Goddess Peak, and heard from the friendly botanist that Popuri had spent the evening in Mary's room, sneaking downstairs only occasionally to steal his seed catalogues. But then where the hell had she been for the _rest _of the day to make Elli and Mary so frantic, Rick demanded with half a smile of relief and half a frown of annoyance, leading to one heck of a strange expression.

When the aforementioned young ladies had finally skittered onto the scene, they breathed simultaneous sighs of relief to find Popuri protesting, pure confused innocence, that she _hadn't_ been missing – _she'd_ known exactly where she was all day!

One extra-specially contrite apology later – _sorry, guys; we didn't know that Popuri was going to meet up with us at Mary's, and when we couldn't find her, we kind of panicked_ – found the girls safe, for the time, from discovery.

Throughout this entire exchange, Karen kept her own council regarding her newly acquired knowledge that Mary and Elli were Scheming once again. After all, she would later shrug when asked, small town life was pretty boring most of the time, and a girl had to take her excitement where it came. Even if the nature of that excitement really did make her fear for her friends' sanity on occasion.

And so, at long last, the crowd thinned. Rick, so enjoying the sheer relief to find his sister alive and well that he wasn't prepared to lose it by letting her out of his sight again for at least a good ten minutes, marched her home despite her protests, only increasing the pace when she called back a loving goodnight to Kai.

That same young man returned the farewell a little less enthusiastically than he might have, had he not just spent the past two hours looking for his girlfriend and fighting with her brother by turn, and then tromped off back to the Inn with an even less enthusiastic farewell for the three remaining girls.

Karen, at this point, muttered something that sounded distinctly like _yeah, we love you too, Kai_, and sauntered back to the Supermarket for a much-needed ice-cold gin and tonic.

Elli, meanwhile, was recalling several things the Doctor had asked her earlier to take care of, that the business of matchmaking had completely banished from her memory until now. With a little yelp of dismay, she took off for the Clinic, leaving Mary to breathe a sigh of relief and lock up for the night.

Yes, at long last the chaos had come to a close, and all was peace and tranquility again.

But only until tomorrow; after all, she still had lots of great ideas!

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Notes: Welp! As is probably quite apparent, this chapter took freaking forever because it got freaking long. Sorry about the delay, hoping to have the next out sooner. Thanks for reading:)


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